Island forests include the immensely humbling live oaks ( Quercus virginiana) shrouded in Spanish moss The island’s isolation means that many cultural traditions have retained roots to West Africa these traditions have gained the attention of anthropologists, scholars, artists. The word Saltwater refers, of course, to island living, and to the unique cadence in the language that is different from the “Freshwater Geechee” common to the mainland. The name “Geechee” is thought to have come from a West African tribe-the Kissi (pronounced “Gee-zee”), who populate the area of modern-day Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
Hog Hammock is the last remaining town on Sapelo Island, and its few residents serve as the guardians of their extraordinary history and unique Saltwater Geechee culture. The roots are nestled in a light, sandy soil that is used for rooftop gardening-also optimal for the trees' survival.Īt just eleven miles long, and four miles wide, Sapelo is Georgia’s fourth largest sea island. During the reconstruction era, many of the emancipated Sapelonians purchased land and established permanent settlements, including the tiny village of Hog Hammock. Today, almost all of the island belongs to the State of Georgia as a wildlife management area, and the 6,000-acre Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve. The site is a microclimate where live oaks might thrive in a colder northern climate because at that location the garden is built above the museum’s underground galleries-a heat source to create the added thermal conditions that the trees need.
This will be an ideal location to pay homage to this island and its peoples. On the west side of the museum grounds is a landscape feature known as the Reading Grove. This space, comprised of sculpted benches beneath live oak trees symbolizes "Hope and Optimism," and is dedicated to group teaching and storytelling. Sapelo is where sweetgrass marshes mingle with sweet-smelling sea air. The plan was for these native plants to be nurtured in the Smithsonian Greenhouse Complex until large enough for transplant to the grounds of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I was on the island doing fieldwork as a Smithsonian horticulturist with the objective to identify and collect tree seedlings that could best embody the Islands rich heritage. Remnants of this period on Sapelo still resonate in the foundation stones, earthworks and with the Sapelonians themselves. The first enslaved Africans were thought to have been introduced by a French agricultural venture to raise cattle and harvest live oaks for shipbuilding. The island’s climate, sandy soils and wetlands made for exceptional conditions to grow cotton, rice and sugar cane-crops that were grown until the Civil War ended the plantation economy, and the island’s nearly 400 slaves were set free. Inhabited for millennia by American Indians, the island was first visited by Spanish missionaries in the late 1500s, and was later colonized by British and French interests. Sapelo is also rich with historical and cultural significance. Sapelo’s alligator-filled creeks and imposing forests of bladed palmetto, dense thickets of yaupon holly ( Ilex vomitoria), tall slash pine ( Pinus elliottii), and immensely humbling live oaks ( Quercus virginiana) shrouded in Spanish moss are sign posts of Mother Nature’s dominion over this island. A relatively unchanged landscape and untouched natural wonderland, the island's sweetgrass marshes mingle with sweet-smelling sea air and its dunes and beaches are made iridescent by metallic sands. The island of Sapelo is a rugged and mysterious paradise. Seven miles off the coast of Georgia is a remote and wildly pristine barrier island accessible only by ferry.
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